1. Be Unreal

Musk is renowned for venturing into things people thought impossible, and he always comes out with results that are too fantastic to believe.

2. Futuristic Innovation

There is a sharp difference between an inventor and an innovator. An inventor obviously designs and creates something new, but an innovator is a revolutionist.

Musk is not just the regular inventor out there. He sees the mediocrity that has been celebrated in a system for donkey’s years, and all that comes to his mind is “How do I change this to make it far exceedingly better? How do I create a revolution.?”

He’s an innovator that knocks off the world acclaimed systems and drags the too-distant future to the “now”.

A success oriented individual should learn to conceive things bigger than themselves. The future is not as far as we think.

3. Think Out Of This World

Earlier, I noted that he’s unreal, now I’m saying that he’s totally out of this world (figuratively and literally). After he started SpaceX with a number of failures, Musk said,

It’s important that humanity becomes a multi-planet species, I think most people will agree that a future where we are a space faring civilization is inspiring and exciting compared with one where we are forever confined to Earth until some eventual extinction event. That’s really why I started SpaceX.

This guy obviously doesn’t think the same way a rational human thinks. His thought pattern is not limited to the happenings on earth. An Elon Musk wannabe must certainly be able to conceive ideas that are totally out of the box.

4. Focus

Musk moves against the tides and he is always focused when doing that. There is a popular adage that goes thus:

“Don’t put all your eggs in one basket”

Actually, Musk has a revised version of that. His view is:

“It’s okay you put your eggs in one basket as long as you control what happens to the basket”

I can imagine him saying, “there is no point shying away from the Herculean task. Give it all you got. If you succeed, kudos. If you fail, pick yourself up and throw another blow. But in all these, focus is key.”

Musk poured so much of his money into SpaceX and Tesla that he had to borrow money from friends to cover his living expenses.

He dedicated his entire resources including time to steadily watch his babies (Space X and Tesla) grow.

**Success is not always about casting your bread on many waters. At rare times, it’s about casting one large chunk of bread on sure waters.

5. Create Values

“Well, first of all, I think if somebody is doing something that is useful to the rest of society, I think that’s a good thing. Like, it doesn’t have to change the world. If you make something that has high value to people… And frankly, even if it’s something, if it’s like just a little game or some improvement in photo sharing or something, if it has a small amount of good for a large number of people, I think that’s fine. Stuff doesn’t need to change the world just to be good.”

It’s obvious that not everyone needs to be the space flying Elon Musk, but in your own little capacity, do something that will positively affect your immediate environment.

6. Start Small

I know this doesn’t sound much like the Elon who put all his billions and pennies in SpaceX and Tesla and went borrowing, but you’ve got to accept it, he also preaches on starting small. He told The Henry Ford in an interview how he inspires his team at work.

You have to stay grounded in the short term. ‘Cause if you don’t do things that pay the bills you’re not gonna achieve the ultimate long-term objective.

Success is like a domino effect. For Musk, resources for the next level of success needs to come from the outcome of the things you’re doing now. You’ve got to start somewhere.

This is a photo summary of the formidable business plan of Tesla.

7. Get A Vision And Point Others To It.

At a TED talk in 2017, he talked extensively about Tesla vehicles. Musk claims that once the problem of vision is “solved,” autonomous vehicles that rely purely on cameras will be 10 times better than human drivers.

I took that literally, and it’s far deeper than it sounds.

Insinuatingly, the problem of humans is our inability to see beyond the limit of our eyes. But a car guided by networked cameras can see beyond the next junction, the next police checkpoints, traffic lights, road blocks, the one after that, and the one after that. Such a car can be said to be an embodiment of vision.

While speaking at The Henry Ford, he inspired hearts with this:

“Well, I try to make it a really fun place to work, really enjoyable. And I talk about the grand vision of SpaceX, where we wanna go, what we wanna do; we wanna take people to orbit and beyond. We ultimately want to be the company that makes a difference in extension of life beyond earth, which is one of the most important things that life itself could achieve. And so sort of you construct this great Holy Grail potential in the future.”

He’s got a vision of where he wants his baby (Tesla) to be, but he needs a team to take it there. So he keeps, telling them about the vision each time he gets the opportunity.

Until you’ve successfully gotten the right set of people working towards a set vision, you will never fail to make successful steps to nowhere.

8. Work Out Your Fats

I’m not an advocate of a stressful living, but I must say that I love Musk for good. I wish I can use the word “terrible” and some very concentrated off-the-grid words to describe how hard he works.

“Work like hell. I mean you just have to put in 80 to 100 hour weeks every week. This improves the odds of success. If other people are putting in 40 hour work weeks and you’re putting in 100 hour work weeks, then even if you’re doing the same thing you know that… you will achieve in 4 months what it takes them a year to achieve.”

He tweeted that his working pattern had adverse effects on his health.

That notwithstanding, Musk is a goal getter who believes in diligence, dedication and hard work.

Success isn’t breakfast. It isn’t a tray of mouthwatering burrito, served with oatmeal and chilled strawberry yoghurt, that will be placed on your bedside while you’re making a return from dreamland. Wake up! you’ve got to work for it.

When he was asked why he would start a company when he didn’t believe it would be successful, he dropped this little nugget:

“If something is important enough you should try even if the probable outcome is failure.”

He has tasted failure tons of times, and there was no need shying away from it as long as it pertains to what he strongly believes in.

Tesla lived beyond the expectations of its founder, due to his relentlessness.

10. Be Bold Against The Crowd

Even in the face of potential failures, Elon hasn’t stopped being the bold talking Musk.

He can be considered to be arrogant and adamant due to his perception of things. Many people are very skeptical about him including some investors and potential investors.

When asked why he thinks people have high skepticism towards him, he had this to say:

“Well, I think it’s because we’re doing these things that are unlikely to succeed. And we’ve been fortunate, and at least thus far, they’ve been successful”

Musk’s walk against the odds is way beyond focus, it’s acute determination to impose his own reality on others. I mean, if you think his ideas are wack, he’ll work tooth and nail to bring it to success while your eyes lucidly watch.